I don't have the 800gs, but the 12gs. I just installed the Desierto 3 on mine and it came with the plastic nuts on the windscreen. I did have 3 bolts with "squared" necks that didn't fit properly. I did give TT a call and they immediately (same day) sent the new hardware. The customer service at TT is top notch, even though the instructions suck and the hardware is not always as exact as you'd expect, considering the price they charge for this fairing!

__________________"I think its fair to say  with no scientific evidence  that deathbed wishes rarely include, 'If only I had put another twenty hours a week in at the office!

I just installed my Desierto 3 a few weeks ago and mine is still using the old bolts and knobs.. WTF?

Are you going off road? They guy that owned my GS before me did 6000 street miles with no problems at all. I did 8 hours off road the first weekend I had it and three of the four bolts vibrated out. I happened to look down while on a rough gravel road and saw that the $800+ windsheild was barely hanging on! I secured it with zip ties, called TT (great customer service), and they sent me replacements for free but I have since replace the stock pieces with locking nuts from Lowes. I do need to keep a couple of wrenches with me to make adjustments but so far no issues after many miles on rough/washboard fireroads.

I have had a couple of requests for pics of my final screen version, so seeing as it's boxing day and it's too hot in the shed, here goes.

Firstly to those what have been waiting (several months) for these muchas aplogistas, I hope they are still useful.

Anyway the story so far. A couple of years ago we shipped the bikes to the South Island of New Zealand and prior to that trip I hurriedly made a couple of screens. While they did the job I was never really happy with them and there were some shortcomings with the level of protection that became obvious during that trip.

For comparison some pics of that trip with the originals.

So now to the final version. It is much refined and I put a lot more effort into the mould. I sacrificed one of the original TT POS into the mould by extending it with balsa and foam. The whole thing was then filled and sanded until I was happy with the shape.

The problem with the shape is that the original is injection moulded and that allows the luxury of having the reverse curve in the lower part.

To allow me to replicate this curve I was intending to use a vacuum bag moulding technique which involves heating the sheet of acrylic and then placing the whole shebang into a big plastic bag and pulling a vacuum on it to force the heated acrylic to conform to the mould. It turned out to be a major PITA and my patience wore thin (translates as "I spat the dummy").

Plan B was enacted, I approached a local plastic fabricator to see if they could help me do it in their workshop, and they said "maybe". Reverse curves are very difficult to drape mould, which involves placing the heated sheet of acrylic over the mould and then holding it down onto the shape with (usually) a sheet of temperature resistant cloth. When a reverse curve is involved clearly the cloth will not do the job, and so before the acrylic cools the reverse curve has to hand pressed - not easy!

In the end what we did was use the second TT screen as a shaped press to form the hot acrylic down onto the mould, sort of like compression moulding of plastic.

The other issue was that I wanted the acrylic material to be a grade that was appropriate for use as a bike windshield. Most acrylic shatters when impacted, the one I wanted to use (apparently) won't do this. But here's the rub, material like this is MUCH harder to hand mould especially to a reverse curve - strewth why do I always bite off more than I can chew!

Anyway, in the end it worked and I am now very happy with the result. I made screens of two heights as I would only get one chance at it, you can see the outlines of the original and the two new ones on the mould. In the end I prefer the lower one.

After using these new screens in the rain we found there was an annoying effect of rain drops being spun up under the chin of the helmet. I have discovered that this is caused by wind coming up from the beak, beside the screen then under the handle bars to hit the rider in the chest, and then of course with nowhere to go it just keeps going up under the helmet. This is clearly an aerodynamic problem with the whole design of the front of these bikes when a screen is added as I notice that BMW have also found this and added small winglets to the side of the new screen for the F800 Adventure - I have a design in mind and just need time and energy to build a mould and add them on.

Here is the mould

The Higher screen ( I left it dirty so you can see it )

The Lower screen

__________________
Cheers, Mike
Don't just look at it - Ride the bloody thing!

Hello to everyone!
I have one question. I am 1,90 cm and i have the bmw comfort seat. I would like to know if desierto will be fine for me , if will cover my head from the wind.
Thank you in advance!

I recognize myself in your question. We are about the same height but I am riding the stock seat and could not get the Desierto Fairing adjusted to suit. The problem for me was that I seem to be too far away from it in my normal riding posture. If I leaned into it a little, then all the settings worked great. If I sat where I normally do I was always in a zone of slight buffeting not much different than the stock screen. For me at least, it seems to be more about distance from screen than height of screen.

I read every post about windshields that I could track down (which takes a while but is worth it for the knowledge base you will get). Then I took a shot on the Desierto. What I've learned from all these inmates and my own experimentation is that there is no rhyme or reason for which windscreen works best for any given rider. More than a few GS riders have the Desierto and love it, which is why I tried it. But for me the experiment continues.